#not really for my own enjoyment

[thatfizzyyyy]

🧍🏾‍♀️

[lilybug-02]

Eimmet High...temmiE high. OMG!

Part 28 || First || Previous || Next...(Hiatus)

--Full Series--

Next update may take...much longer! I have finals and an internship and not to mention I have to draw- A LOT :')

[omaano]

"Congratulations on your new job on Coruscant, Commander"

Fox commission for @whiskygoldwings Thank you so much for letting me run wild with these, I've missed drawing flowers so much! ❤️

Black Dahlia - for betrayal, evil and dishonesty Orange Lilies - for deep hatred, doom, as well as enthusiasm and energy (good as congratulation for a new job or promotion) Poppies - for the dead and Foxgloves - for deceit

[canisalbus]

Baby Machete is everything to me, I just imagine him running to do an errand in town and clacking a stick against a wood fence and seeing this Lil baby man with his hard earned allowance wanting a treat. (I cannot draw dogs I'm sorry)

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[corvidcall]

None Of You Know What Haiku Are

I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.

If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?

Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!

First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.

For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.

In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).

Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?

Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.

(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)

Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.

Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.

Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音 (Furu ike ya　kawazu tobikomu　mizu no oto) (The old pond — A frog jumps in The sound of the water.)

You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.

English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.

Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.

Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)

The piercing chill I feel: my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom, under my heel

We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.

"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:

meteor shower . . . a gentle wave wets our sandals

When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.

"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?

I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards

a year at most . . . we pretend to watch the hummingbirds

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Further reading:

Forms in English Haiku by Keiko Imaoka Haiku: A Whole Lot More Than 5-7-5 by Jack How to Write a Bad Haiku by KrisL Haiku Are Not a Joke: A Plea from a Poet Who Has Had It Up to Here by Sandra Simpson Haiku Checklist by Katherine Raine

[weatherera]

we can just go, right? just find a way out.

[starflungwaddledee]

some rather strong first impressions were made.

required reading for the magical "voice" headcanon and another for starstruck's signature in particular. asked by @trainerbob23 !

[thatswhatsushesaid]

psa that the day there are no jgy stans left on tumblr dot com is the day i am dead

but rest assured i'll go to my grave exactly as i lived: obnoxiously proclaiming to everyone within earshot how great lianfang-zun is. narratively, metaphorically, spiritually. sexually, too, like why limit myself. i like to keep my options open

[idolomantises]

Bugtopia is coming out next month and I'm both very excited and very nervous. I'm sure people won't go in with crazy expectations or anything since the series was originally just me throwing random ideas around, but I spent a lot of time plotting out the story and characters (while still keeping it mostly episodic).

It's gonna be different but I'm really proud of how it turned out.

[macaroonkitti]

Happy anniversary to Tears of the Kingdom 🎉

[karvviie]

every day i am still shocked at how many people interact with my rvb content

[bonefall]

How many times does Thriftear come up in Ivypool's Heart? I'm honestly suprised she wasn't part of the traveling party. It was my personal conspiracy theory that they picked Ivy's background daughter to be Moonpaw's mom so that they could sell more super edition copies by locking her potential character development behind a paywall. This would have been the best place to do it too so who knows what they were thinking here.

She comes up exactly 9 times, and only one of those times is any actual information. It's Ivypool thinking about how Thriftear only tidies up her den when it gets messy. Flipclaw is in Ivypool's thoughts a lot more, especially when the Sisters come up and she starts seething about how they would treat her boy-kit.

So, sorry anon. I think your personal conspiracy theory's sadly incorrect; they just kinda don't care enough about Thriftear to actually give her a distinct personality. The only tidbit we got about her is essentially that she's the most normal of her siblings.

(absolutely unlike BB, I've gotta blabber, because BB!Thriftear is a LOT like BB!Bristlefrost. They were two ambitious, up-and-rising cats in ThunderClan, but Thriftear was actually the more intense between the two of them.)

We also don't get any word on how Thriftear got her name; Ivypool actually confirms that she knows very little about the ocean, and thrift is a flower found on maritime cliffs. This is a tiny detail but one I find very strange.

[saavik]

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so. i spent an inordinate amount of time making this little compilation of my favorite bitchy and dramatic peter strahm moments from saw iv. enjoy, if you will.

[canisalbus]

How do you draw so frequently???

I'm starting to think I probably have some passive ADHD so I end up always admiring ppl who can just constantly do stuff, it's like a dream, your art is also like a dream, Vasco is also a sweet dream, I really like Vasco, he looks really sweet

I set aside a little bit of time every evening just to draw, it's become almost like a wind down routine for me. It helps if I don't treat it as serious 100% effort hard mode art time, I usually multitask a little on the side, watch a movie or take breaks to do little chores around the house and art just sort of happens if it happens. Lately I've been making mostly personal low pressure feel-good pieces.

[reichurine]

:) gotta love making merch (sometimes)

Felt like sharing since I am kinda happy with how the merch looks this time around~

[chiropteracupola]

He’s red and he’s white and he’s green and he’s grey / My bonny young dragon, come hither away...

Keith Windham and Nuntius, out of Luzula's stunning Flight of the Heron/Temeraire crossover fic 'The Flight of Dragons.'